Page 37 of Secret Revenge

It was everything I could do to stay my hands on my lap. My chest hurt from his words. It felt like there was a crack in my heart and it was spilling into every other organ in my body.

What was happening? How was this happening? His actions weren’t shocking. They were consistent with the image I’d had of him all my life. It was my own reactions that were shocking. Shouldn’t I be happy that I did not have to be the one to end the thing we had?

At least now I didn’t have to feel guilty about anything. If he was this much of a bastard, he didn’t deserve my guilt. So why was I trying to talk things through with him? I’d stolen from his company. I was indangerevery moment I was with him.

So why the hell didn’t I just get out and leave?

I got out of the car angrily and slammed the door. I took a step back and waited for him to come after me but I was left in shock when the car zoomed off.

I won. I got what I wanted out of the situation. So why did I feel like the scum of the earth? Why was my heart hurting this way? Why did I feel like running after him to tell him the truth about everything? Why did it feel like I had lost?

Upset, I tossed my lingerie into the purse and went straight to Michael’s house. It was time to be done with this. I knocked on the door impatiently, glad when Michael opened the door almost immediately.

I took him in. He was in his sleepwear but it looked as if he had not gotten any sleep. His eyes were red and tired, but I was certain that he had planned to stay awake for as long as he could manage. Not that I was surprised. It was as if he never went to sleep.

“Whoa, hey! Do you know it’s 2am?” he asked, opening the door wider to let me in. I walked in without saying a word, stillstung by what had happened with Travis. I tried to compose myself before saying anything so he would not detect anything from my tone.

“Yes. I wanted to make sure that you got this immediately,” I said finally.

“Okay… you could have done this tomorrow though?” he said, looking at me questioningly when I shook my head at him.

“No. I want to find out all the dirty secrets Travis Ross and his brothers are hiding right now,” I told him, my tone leaving no room for debate.

There was also the part left unsaid. I needed to find out what it was the Ross Brothers were up to and hiding so that I could put an end to my heartbreak.

When I found out what Travis had been doing with Ross Industries, I’d hate him again. I was sure of it.

18

EMILY

My feet tapped impatiently as I waited for Michael to finish sorting out the documents on the flash drive. It seemed like he’d spent hours going through all the information on it. I told myself to be patient. Told myself it was a lot of information.

I yawned, blinking rapidly as my eyes burned from lack of sleep. When this was all over, I would take a few days for myself to relax and recuperate from the stress of everything. But for now, sleep could wait.

I hated the emotions warring within me as I watched Michael work. I felt guilty about handing all of Travis’s data over to someone else, about intending to use it to ruin him. I felt angry at Travis and I wanted Michael to be donenow, so I could know how much Travis deserved my hatred. I wanted Travis out of my head, wanted not to feel hatredorguilt. I wanted to be an objective observer, like a truly independent journalist was supposed to be.

My eyes focused back on the screen, getting lost in it as Michael scrolled through all of the information on the drive. Spreadsheets, reports, emails. The longer we spent snoopingthrough his personal files, the heavier the sinking feeling in my chest became.

We sat quietly, unable to look away or speak.

Everything that we could see on the screen was our worst nightmare.

Travis was doing the worst thing that we could ever imagine… and that was… absolutely nothing wrong.

All this time and effort we had spent on this mission was for nothing. We had gone through all his emails, as well as their private documents over again, dividing the tasks between us and trying to see if there was anything that we had missed…but it was the same result.

We had never seen anyone squeaky clean like he was in every single business dealing. He was a perfect gentleman, even in private emails that he had locked down under top security.

Travis was the kind of businessman I had not believed really existed. Everyone who worked for him received what was due to them, and those who did anything important got credit for their work. Even those who refused him what he wanted were treated with nothing but respect.

We had also noticed in several emails that he had refused to sell bad assets or engage in insider trading. He chastised people who had offered such to him and made sure every single bad deal was rejected with no room for arguments.

Ever since he took over, everything about his business to the littlest detail was completely legitimate. He had cut off every business dealing from his father’s time that did not appear to be legitimate.

I looked at Michael who was also lost for words and noticed that he had the same expression as I did. I found it difficult to wrap my head around this reality.

I was reeling.